Greta Thunberg Is Hitching A Ride To The US On An Eco-Yacht For A Climate Summit

Greta Thunberg really is leading by example. The 16-year-old activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee from Sweden, who kick-started a global youth movement in 2018 in a bid to tackle climate change, famously shuns air travel because of the damage the aviation industry wreaks on the environment. But she's not letting that stop her from attending upcoming UN climate summits in the US and Chile – she's simply going to sail across the Atlantic in a high-speed racing yacht to get there.

Thunberg, who plans to embark on a sabbatical in the US, took to Twitter to share the news: “Good news! I’ll be joining the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, COP25 in Santiago… I’ve been offered a ride on the 60ft racing boat Malizia II. We’ll be sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from the UK to NYC in mid-August,” she wrote. The journey will take two weeks.

Thunberg, who appears on the cover of British Vogue’s September 2019 issue, Forces For Change, announced in June that she would be taking a year off school to attend the summits. At the time, she admitted that she didn’t how she would get there. “It’s on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean,” she said. “And there are no trains going there. And since I don’t fly, because of the enormous climate impact of aviation, it’s going to be a challenge.”

Now, Thunberg will get from one place to the other by yacht. Owned by German property developer, Gerhard Senft, it’s sponsored by Yacht Club de Monaco. The club took to Facebook to say it “was honoured to be able to sail Greta Thunberg emission-free over the Atlantic”. The summits – which are due to take place on September 23 in New York and December 2-13 in Santiago – will discuss how we tackle climate change.